


Ghost in Your Arms

by platonicdust



Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Angst, Depression, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Non-Linear Narrative, Recovery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-31
Updated: 2019-08-31
Packaged: 2020-10-03 23:19:39
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,919
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20461175
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/platonicdust/pseuds/platonicdust
Summary: The house is quiet. The cat doesn’t wake him up anymore, pawing at his face. Doesn’t brush up against his legs when he makes coffee or curl up in his lap at night. It’s gone and no amount of wishing or crying or screaming will change that. Thomas is gone too. All that’s left of him is the box in the attic. The only thing Alex hasn’t gotten rid of.





	Ghost in Your Arms

**Author's Note:**

> I've been sitting on this fic for so long it barely makes sense to me anymore. I wanna start branching out more in terms of what I write but I'm gonna try and finish all my half finished drafts soon. That being said, this is just me procrastinating writing the papers I'm supposed to and doing exam prep so
> 
> Anyway, hope this makes at least a little bit of sense. I really wanna stop projecting so much and actually start writing some half decent stories but this will have to do for now. Apparently I'm craving recovery fics which is probably why the ending is so cheesy
> 
> Title from Ghosting by Mother Mother - also inspired by [this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fp-ue8Ku57Q) amazing animatic on youtube 
> 
> (thanks for reading)

Alex swears he catches glimpses of the cat around the house. He sees it out of the corner of his eye, sitting on the kitchen counter whilst he’s cooking. Only, when he turns around, it’s not there anymore. When he’s stumbling down the hall, still under the haze of sleep, he can see it bathing in the morning sun. He blinks once, then twice. Wonders if he’s going insane. But he can’t even remember the bastard’s name. A coping mechanism, Eliza had told him.

The house is quiet. The cat doesn’t wake him up anymore, pawing at his face. Doesn’t brush up against his legs when he makes coffee or curl up in his lap at night. It’s gone and no amount of wishing or crying or screaming will change that. Thomas is gone too. All that’s left of him is the box in the attic. The only thing Alex hasn’t gotten rid of.

Sometimes, when he can handle it, Alex shuffles through it. The box is filled to the rim with polaroids and pieces of old records. Thomas had always had an affinity towards the rustic, towards the vintage. Jon had thought it cliche at first. Thought a lot of things about Thomas. Alex couldn’t play them anymore, even if he wanted to. They were far too broken, filled with too many memories of Thomas pulling him from the couch, teaching him to dance along with the soft jazz in the background. Filled with reminders of when he first got the call about Thomas, he had smashed the first things he could get his hands on. First was Charlie Parker, then John Coltrane and the numerous Miles Davis albums.

And then the tears. The non-stop crying and feeling of fatigue that took over his whole body.

So Alex drinks himself to sleep that night. He doesn’t stop the next morning. Doesn’t stop until he has run out of the whisky in his cupboard and the cheap vodka too.

\---

Thomas kisses his cheek when he comes through the door, shoving the Chinese takeout into Alex’s hands.

“Tell me you’ve taken a break since I left.” And Alex hasn’t. Not since this morning and his hands are cramping up, neck in need of a massage. So he just hums instead, can hear Thomas sigh and take off his jacket.

“Alex, come on. I know for a fact you don’t need to finish that right now.”

Alex is about to get mad at him, tell him to just give him some fucking space. But he turns around and looks at Thomas. There’s nothing even remotely out of the ordinary about him, it’s just that Alex forgets to look at Thomas sometimes, really look at him.

Thomas smiles tiredly at him, big enough for his dimples to appear and Alex is gone. Lets Thomas shut his laptop and kiss his neck and coax him out of the chair. Alex straddles him on the couch, slipping his hands under Thomas’ shirt and moaning quietly. He can hear Thomas breathing heavily, chuckling into the kiss. Then they’re both leaning back and one of them must hit the remote because the TV turns on, startling them both. Alex falls softly to the floor, huffing and gesturing for Thomas to turn it off. But Thomas just chuckles, pulling Alex up onto the couch.

“The couch probably wasn’t the best place for this anyway.” Thomas lets out with a nervous chuckle.

Alex loves it when Thomas gets embarrassed. His cheeks heat up, decorating his face with a faint pink blush and he always scratches the back of his neck.

“How about this: I go down to the store and grab some more ice cream, considering someone managed to eat it all, and you pick a movie to watch. But no romcoms or I swear to God.”

“I’d have finished the movie by the time you even leave.” Thomas claps back with an insult and Alex flips him the bird. Even throughout their lovelorn glances, they always resort back to their college dynamics.

Alex manages to find a movie about ten minutes after. Some shitty horror about zombie beavers that he knows Thomas will love. The cat comes up to curl in his lap and Alex scratches behind her ear absentmindedly, waiting idly for Thomas to come back.

Except he doesn’t come back.

\---

John comes over sometime after Alex has run out.

“You look like shit.” And Alex doesn’t have anything to say.

“Seriously, you smell awful too.” Because this is their relationship now.

John’s still there for him, still cares. They both know that, no matter how hard John tries to hide it. But Alex gets it. Wonders why John still visits him. College had been an awful time for them all, John most of all. His father had kicked him out because he started dating Alex, then Alex broke his heart by sleeping with the girl who lived down the hall. All John got was an “I told you so” from his father.

“How’s your dad?” Alex asks instead, getting an angry glance from John.

He makes Alex breakfast, cleaning up the stray bottles that litter the floor. Alex knows John is talking to him but maybe it’s the headache that’s distracting him or maybe it’s the cat that shouldn’t be there. Several times throughout their conversation, John looks behind him, following Alex's eyes. He frowns but never asks about it and that’s all Alex needs. Everyone around him keeps shoving pamphlets in his face; AA meetings, grief therapy, group trauma counselling. And he just can’t understand why no one seems to understand that this is all he needs. To stay at home and not go to work. To drink himself half to death and not get out of bed most days. And when the time comes, then he’ll get better. Time heals all wounds.

John leaves after a couple of hours. He doesn’t explicitly say it but Alex knows it’s still hard for John to be around him for too long. And Alex wishes for the infinite time that he didn’t fuck up every good thing in his life. His friends are trying. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he knows. But they never stay too long and they’re always so careful around him.

It’s easier to just stay mad at them instead.

\---

Thomas gets home later than usual. Alex almost gets mad before Thomas flourishes a bouquet of yellow carnation in his face. Contempt. “Happy anniversary.” He says it sweetly but he’s wearing this shit-eating grin and Alex smiles despite himself. Because Thomas tries so hard not to give himself away, to show he doesn’t care.

“Yeah, love you too idiot.” He puts the flowers in a glass anyway.

“Hey, who said anything about love?” But Thomas is smiling, in that sort of gentle and ethereal way he does when he first wakes up, sunlight cradling his head and hair spanned out on the pillows. Alex suddenly remembers all the bad poetry he’s written about Thomas over the years, thankful that he’s never seen them.

They make out a little like teenagers. Thomas lifting Alex onto the counter and pulling lightly at his hair. Alex can hear the soft sounds of jazz and briefly wonders when Thomas put it on. Wonders if he’s just hearing things but doesn’t really mind. The whole scene feels new and nostalgic and surreal and domestic all at once and Alex feels dizzy from it all. Thomas is all smiles and sarcasm and everything Alex first wanted him for.

Thomas is the first to get up from the couch. Alex whines a little at the loss of warmth before Thomas is coming back over. Alex can hear the jazz following him back, the low scratchy sound that the record plays. And then Thomas is presenting him with a wrapped package. Alex smooths his hand over the paper and carefully starts unwrapping it. The complete edition of Solon’s poems.

He’s sure he’s got tears in his eyes, sees them drip onto the paper, feels Thomas wipe them away. Alex nods his head when Thomas asks if he’s okay. He hugs him for what feels like hours. Pulling away shyly and thanking him. For the first time since they started dating Alex really knows he wants to spend the rest of his life with Thomas.

\---

_Some wicked men are rich, some good men poor, _  
_But I would rather trust in what's secure_

\---

When Alex wakes up he sees the cat on the bed, can almost feel the weight of it except it’s not there. Not really. He can see the ghost of it and when he reaches out, can feel the heartbeat; beating, beating. He hates it. Hates that it connects him to the past, that he can’t seem to get away from it. And there are all these people whispering in his ear, telling him to move out, find a new place, maybe find a job or do some freelance work. And every time, he shrugs them off yells at them or gets mad, or breaks down crying in front of them instead.

They came over, each in turn, offering their condolences. They rarely do that anymore. Most of them don’t even talk to him anymore. But Alex doesn’t blame them. He only wishes they could understand that he can’t just get over it. Because Thomas was more than that. Because Thomas is still more than that. Because Thomas is still there with him, even though his friends try and convince Alex he’s seeing things. He knows he’s not. But he doesn’t only see Thomas around the shabby little house, sitting on the counter making bruschetta, he can feel him. Thomas is in the house, seeped into the walls and in the little pot plants on the counter and Alex gets so scared whenever a leaf even turns brown because he can’t deal with losing him again.

So he goes through his routine instead. Wakes up whenever he can, waters the pot plant and feeds the fish. He answers the door when it rings. He’s polite with the people who knock on his door, trying to sell him pointless tools he’s seen on TV. He snaps at his friends when they come by, trying to do his worst until they leave. They know how he is, rolling their eyes as they walk in, leaving with hard eyes that always scream disappointed.

Alex doesn’t know where he’s going with this. He knows - rationally - that he can’t keep this up. The driving away of friends. The not getting out of the house. The drinking and drinking and drinking.

\---

Thomas comes over to meet his friends that night. They’ve decided on a movie night, not wanting to overwhelm Thomas. His friends are surprised at first, sceptical, only knowing Thomas from Alex’s rants. But they warm up to him quickly. Thomas is as charming as he is annoying. But John is loyal to a fault as always. Thomas comes up to him a few times, wanting to get to know Alex’s best friend. John just brushes him off or rolls his eyes. Thomas shoots Alex an exasperated look and Alex just loses it. He knows he’s laughing wildly, hair making its way into his eyes. If it were anyone else Alex would have punched them already but it was John. Soon Thomas is laughing and then the whole room erupts, not understanding why but enjoying the sore feeling in their stomachs after they settle down.

“You know what, I think we need a toast,” Herc suggests a few hours later. They’ve all had a few drinks, Alex still nursing his first.

“To what?” Thomas’ cheeks are tinged red. Alex never thought he was a romantic but right now all he wants is the closest piece of paper so he can write, write, write; waxing poems about Thomas’ eyes and hair and smile and just him.

“Man, to you of course.” Herc laughs. It's the kind that makes the dimples on his cheeks stand out.

So they all hold out their drinks, clinking them far harder than they need to. This time it’s John who starts laughing first and not by long they all dissolving into fits of ugly laughter.

Herc and John fall asleep on the couches during the third movie. Laf just sort of lays on top of them and Alex thinks there’s no way he can falls asleep like that. But soon enough his breathing evens out and Thomas shakes his head slightly, a small grin playing on his lips. Alex convinces him to move all the pillows and blankets out. Thomas arranges them into a bed, pulling out chairs to make a pillow fort.

“You know, I actually enjoyed this.”

“I knew you would, you need to listen to me more. You’ll find I’m actually right most of the time.”

Thomas snorts. “Fuck off, I was being nice, you should try it sometime.”

Alex stays awake until Thomas falls asleep. Until he can hear the heavy breathing next to him and the crickets fall asleep too. He stays awake because he realises just how lucky he is. How much he’s been through but what he has now. It’s a little overwhelming, so if that night he falls asleep, head on Thomas’ chest with tears rolling down his cheeks, he’s not going to tell anyone.

\---

When Alex wakes up the next morning, he resigns himself to another day of nothing. Another day of self-loathing because of the potential he’s wasting. It’s almost laughable how much Thomas meant to him. Still means to him. When he was still here, Alex never would have let him have this much power over him, always wanting to have the upper hand. Always needing to be able to end everything they had if it came down to it. Just wanted the power of being in control - something he never had as a kid.

And now he can’t even get out of bed without a struggle. Can’t watch the films they used to watch together without feeling a tear open in him. He knows it’s pathetic. He feels pathetic. He just doesn’t know how to fix it himself. Because he needs to be by himself. Because it’s always been that way. Because it feels like the tear hasn’t stopped growing since Thomas left him and didn’t come back.

Just as things start to get better, he sees the outline of the cat and he doesn't know what to do. He could scream or cry or tear his hair out but nothing seems right. He ends up swearing at it instead. He never wanted it. Thomas was the one who took it in, who named it and fed it every night, calling it sweet names as he scratched behind its ear. And when Thomas was gone the cat stayed. Alex resented it but then the next day it was gone. He found out later it had been hit by a car and suddenly Alex resented it for a whole different reason. For taking away the last living part of Thomas. For leaving him alone.

So when Lafayette comes by in the late morning, Alex is crying on the floor, the door unlocked like it always is. He goes to Alex’s room, coming back with a baggy hoodie and wraps his scarf around Alex’s neck. Wipes away Alex’s tears with the sleeves of his sweater and Alex wants to cry more because Lafayette has his hair out today. Lafayette seems to notice, frowns slightly, and pulls his hair into a ponytail.  
  
“Mon cher,” Lafayette nudges him, “John told me what happened.”

Alex doesn’t reply so Lafayette continues, “I know you don’t want to hear this from me - from anyone. You have to get out of here.”

He waits again for Alex to talk. He’s about to until he feels the cat brush against his arm. His throat seizes up and he starts sobbing again, Lafayette just wraps his arms around his worryingly small frame.

“Please, mon ami. We can’t just sit by and watch you waste away in this house. You have to get out.”

Alex surprises himself by saying okay.

  
He doesn’t bother getting changed. Lafayette promised they would only go back to his apartment he shared with Hercules. “John will be there too,” he had said and when Alex looked at him in panic, Lafayette gave him an assuring look. “He’s not mad at you Alex, none of us are.”

As Lafayette slowly pulls away from the curb, Alex catches a glimpse of the cat by the window. It’s almost transparent now and Alex doesn’t know why. Lafayette frowns again, looking at Alex from the side. He glances over at him far too often throughout the short trip to his apartment. If Alex wasn’t as tired he would’ve snapped at Lafayette by now. Instead, he curls up in the seat, staring softly through the window.

True to his word John is there. Hercules is too and Alex is relieved that no one else is. Doesn’t think he can handle the worried glances from Eliza or the staring from James. He knows what James is thinking, even if they haven’t talked since the funeral.

“Hey man, it- it’s been a while.” Hercules tries to laugh it off, patting Alex on the shoulder like he would in high school, after Alex would beat someone in a debate. And for once, Alex doesn’t get irritated. He doesn’t feel his skin crawl or his mind say something cruel. Instead, he smiles slightly at Herc, says a “yeah it has” and glances at John. He doesn’t look mad, just impassive, sitting on the couch nursing a beer while curls fall over his shoulders.

After they have the awkward pleasantries and small talk out of the way, Alex really starts to relax. Relax for the first time since Thomas left. He doesn’t even notice it until he tenses at the jumpscare from the shitty horror film they put on. He’s so used to being tense all the time that the ache in his shoulders has become routine.

Head in John’s lap, hair sprawled out and listening to Laf swear in French is something he’s missed. He’s not even paying attention to the film anymore, too stuck in his own head. But for once, it’s not a bad thing.

\---

Part of Alex wants to look good. Wants Thomas to look at him the way he looks at the girls in their class, the pretty boy at the coffee shop; everyone except Alex. When he checks the clock again, he realises it’s nearly time to leave. But his nerves are making his hands shake so decides to take the long way to the cafe they agreed on. It was somewhere nice, both Alex and Thomas had been there before but it was somewhere they were both happy with - not so fancy that Alex would feel out of place but nice enough for a date.

Alex makes it there about ten minutes late, steeling himself before he walks in. He looks down at his hands, they're shaking. But instead of lingering any longer, he shoves them into his pockets, making his way through the door. The bell rings softly.

Thomas is wearing an irritated frown, “Couldn’t help yourself this one time, could you?”

“Christ, I was only ten minutes late. And if I do recall, I’m the one doing you a favour here.” Alex says as he sits, huffing a little. The problem with Thomas is that he was always easier to be around in Alex’s imagination. He’s always a better debating partner, always a little nicer. His smiles seem less sarcastic and more genuine, like he doesn't loathe the thought of Alex.

Thomas’ frown hadn’t left his face and it only grew with Alex’s words. “I’ve been waiting here nearly an hour. “I thought you left.”

It caught Alex by surprise, the sincerity in his voice.”I thought we agreed on seven. Shit did I get that wrong.”

“No, no. No, I was just early,” His cheeks turned pink, “I just figured you would be too.”

Alex almost laughs at the absurdity, imagining Thomas sitting there, alone and fidgeting. But he doesn’t really have to imagine because Thomas is right there, hands tapping nervously on the table. Suddenly Thomas’ image in his mind seems to change, morphing into someone who seems a little more real, a bit more honest. And Alex isn’t sure how to feel about it.

Except he doesn’t have time to think much about it as the waiter comes over, listening to Thomas pronounce the food with an immaculate French accent. And maybe it’s the mood, or the vibe, or the feeling but the sun is actually shining, and the sounds in the cafe are less annoying and just ambience; background noise in an art-house film. And Alex feels nice and warm in that way he remembers he used to, after meeting John, and Herc, and Laf but before the stress of University, the stress of needing to create a legacy.

“I hope you don’t mind me ordering for you. I just- I just want everything to be perfect. I might not get another chance and, well you’re definitely not the easiest person to please.”

The bell gives a little ring but Alex doesn’t look away. He’s studying Thomas’ face, the small quirk of his lips when he talks, the faint blush that scatters on his cheeks. He wonders how he ever missed the signs, how he ever thought it was contempt he felt about Thomas.

But he’s not ready to open up. Thomas’ seemingly recent change of heart still doesn’t make up for the years of bickering, or the remarks that cut a little too deep. So he just gives a small smile, thanking Thomas for the food, though it goes much deeper than that.

\---

After spending a week staying with Laf, Alex finally builds up the courage to go back to his own house. It’s surreal, standing on the steps of his own house, feeling like he’s a stranger, intruding on someone else’s life.

But when he steps through the door, everything feels exactly the same. The dust seems to dance through the curtains in the same, routine pattern it always had. The plants on the window sill have accumulated a ring of dead leaves around them. It feels eerily empty, abandoned, and the wooden planks creak as he makes his way through the rooms.

The AA meeting time that Eliza scrawled onto an old receipt is still stuck on the fridge. Alex pockets it, propping himself onto the kitchen counter. And he just breathes, really breathes. It feels unfamiliar to just let himself go because he’s spent so long trying to do so much and maybe he’s just tired. Maybe his friends are right when they tell him “We’re worried you’re going to run yourself into the ground.”

Alex doesn’t know much about recovery. He’s always running away from help, from therapy, from his friends. So he doesn’t know what it feels like to get better, to feel whole. But he doesn’t feel sick in his own house now and he hasn’t seen the glowing outline of the cat yet and that must count for something.

He tries to remember the bastard’s name. It’s on the tip of his tongue, somewhere he can’t quite reach. But he remembers and smiles candidly. It’s the last thing he shares with Thomas.


End file.
